Light in the darkness
by Raindropsafalling
Summary: Just a little one-shot of how Katniss & Peeta grew together following the events of Mockingjay.


**Just a little one-shot of how Katniss & Peeta grew together following the events of Mockingjay.**

**Please read & review-i always like to know what you think!**

**Fliss x**

I couldn't sleep.

It was that simple, every time I so much as shut my eyes the darkness was lit bright with burning flames, it scared me...the dark, you never knew what it might bring next. The kitchen light was a permanent entity, it was a wonder it hadn't blown by now but I supposed the light was some fancy capitol fixture.

Most nights I passed out from exhaustion in the early hours curled up in the kitchen armchair, I never made it up to my room. Heading up there would mean accepting to some extent that I was accepting to let the darkness envelop me and for the nightmares to commence.

He must have noticed the light. It was hard to miss, beaming out into the dark night air until the sun rose again. Him, that lovely pale-faced boy who I spent most of my days with in amiable quiet, we'd both had enough noise for a lifetime. Even if he did notice, he must, each night he still bade me good night and headed back across to his own house until morning whence he would promptly arrive back and so our routine would begin again.

Until one night, it changed.

It had been over a month since his last 'mutt' turn and one of the evenings as I pulled a blanket over my legs he stretched up and stood, preparing himself to make his exit, but stopped to consider something and he held a hand out to me, with a slight smile, I craved his warm touch, my hand slid into his our burn scars glittering in the light from above. Pulling me up he smiled softly,

"You go on up and get some sleep I'll tidy up down here".

I froze, how could I expose my own night time ritual. How could I turn and head for those dark stairs knowing I would never make it to the top. Sensing my reluctance his fingertips ever so lightly grazed across my cheek,

"You ok?" even though we both knew it was a question we would never be able to answer. I nodded and silently broke away and dragging my feet made my way up the stairs. The panic rose in my throat the higher I went and eventually unable to stand anymore I sat on a stair near the top and tried to blend in with the shadows until he'd left for the night and I could creep back down to my safe haven.

It was never going to work, after he switched off the lights and was making his way to the door he sensed rather than saw me there the moonlight from the windows brushing the tops of our heads and as our eyes locked I saw the understanding in his eyes as our joint experiences shined within both our eyes. He lightly tripped up the stairs until we sat squashed in together and I lightly touched my head to his shoulder. After sitting quietly for a moment like that time so long ago he lightly scooped me up and carried me the rest of the way up the stairs and deposited me on my bed before he scooted in next to me and all of a sudden it was as if no time had passed at all and I could almost feel the gentle motion of the train rocking us to sleep again, the warmth of his body pressed to my own.

Tightly ensconced in his arms I felt his lips lightly press to my head and subdued the part of me that wished for more, far too early in this still immensely vulnerable boy. Time was our healer.

And for the first time in the longest time, I slept, the natural sleep of content human beings, ones who worries receded at night when the demons came out to plague us less fortunate.

The next morning was the beginning of an unwritten new start.

Peeta never left, he came to consciously realise what he had always unconsciously known, that I needed him. More than I ever would anybody else. We became a unit, the team we began as, from the bread throwing to the hunger games themselves.

Eventually we became the love the other needed and desired and he became the person that was irrevocably tied to me and me to him for the rest of our lives.


End file.
